Just Believe
by Lizzie Weasley
Summary: Luna drags Harry unwillingly into a search for the infamous Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Little does he know, Harry finds alot more than he was barganing for and it just might change the way he thinks of Loony Lovegood. HL romance R


**_Just Believe_**

* * *

It was the very middle of the bloody winter for Merlin's sake! And yet there I was, trudging up that blasted hill in the middle of below zero weather, my shoes drowning in melted snow, and my socks freezing to my toes. Snow covered my hair making my hair almost seem graying. And that's a pretty difficult thing when your hairs black, I can tell you that for a fact. Why the bloody hell was I doing this then, you might ask? To tell you the truth, I would sometimes ask myself the same thing.

Her blonde head bobbed up and down in front of me as we, slowly but surely, tracked our way all around that damned mountain of a hill, our footprints staring back at us as we climbed the same trail for the fiftieth time in a row.

I had finally agreed to her begging after she promised to get at me in the middle of the night if I told her I wouldn't. And I'm serious, don't put it against Luna Lovegood not to do that sort of thing even if you can't really think of a way for her to get into the portrait hole, through the Gryffindor common room, and up the boy's staircase without getting caught. I promise, she'd find a way. I even wonder sometimes why she wasn't in Gryffindor herself. Or even, perhaps, Slytherin.

This morning, as soon as she walked through the giant oak doors, she saw me seated at my usual place beside Ginny and Neville in the Great Hall and hurried her way over to me as fast as she could, dropped onto the seat beside mine and gave me one of those smug I've-got-you-so-wrapped-around-me-finger-its-pathetic looks. I can't even describe it exactly, but it annoys the hell out of me. (Ginny especially likes to use it on me just because she knows I detest it. Stupid prat Weasleys…) She didn't even pause to say hello. She just casually took a piece of bacon from my plate and shoved it into her mouth and grinned. As if it were a normal every day thing, eating my beloved bacon right out of my plate!

"Ready to go, Harry," she said every so sweetly, batting her eyelashes innocently. It still didn't change the fact that my bacon was slowly making its way down to her stomach though. I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about but nodded, all the while, thinking she was probably talking about breakfast.

I shrugged. "Sure."

She smiled at me, again with that annoying sneer of absolute power. "Good. Then we'll start on the left side of the mountains today and work our way west tomorrow. We should have the whole terrain covered by next Friday!" That smug smile stayed on her face even as she left back for her place at the Ravenclaw table and I watched her go, a pit deepening in my stomach.

I groaned inwardly. The fact was, I knew it was going to be a long day even before it started. And surely, it was. One of the longest days of my life to tell you the truth.

My wand was stuck out in front of me in my open hand pointing the way north. However by then, I knew exactly where I was going and I didn't need my wand to tell me where. Absolutely nowhere. Luna believed otherwise.

"Just a little further!" she would call out though the snow filled air, or even "I was positive they would be here, but maybe they're a bit farther East."

The Crumple-Horned Snorkack. We had trekked all across the Hogwarts mountains and a bit beyond the boundaries through the blistering cold and bitter winds to find no other than a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Why you may ask? Well that's another story.

It seemed that even despite the fact that she had her hair pinned up in at least twenty separate clips, none which matched the others, arranged randomly in her hair so that it stuck up in odd places, a mustard yellow scarf tied tightly around her neck and matching gloves, a white raincoat with lizards print, and bright orange galoshes four sizes to big, I still respected Luna and her strange ways. It seemed that even despite the fact that everyone in Hogwarts, including myself, seemed to think she was strange and a bit weird at times, she held her head high and continued to stick to what she fancied to be true. I really and truly admired her more than anything for that.

My legs started to ache really bad and she must have noticed I had slowed down quite a bit because the next moment I realized we were both sitting on a fallen tree trunk that was alongside our path. Luna sighed deeply and placed her head onto her hands gazing from time to time at me from the corner of her big blue eyes. I could tell there was something she wasn't saying.

"What's wrong?" I asked her softly, praying she wouldn't get too offended over my asking. I know I _hate_ when people ask that question and nothing whatsoever is wrong with me.

She sighed again, a little more lightly this time and looked down at her galoshes as she buried them in a lump of snow. "I don't know, Harry. Maybe there were Diffido Buttery Sprites on my toast this morning or it could just be that the Confudus Bogies are starting to sink into my feet through the snow or something, but I think I'm starting to regret dragging you along today." She looked down at her feet again with a half smile and shook the snow from her galoshes.

I found that this wasn't exactly the time to ask exactly what Diffido Buttery Sprites and Confudus Bogies were so I decided to hold my tongue on that subject and be a bit more sympathetic for the moment. Instead I came out with a big fat "Why?". As if that would make her feel SO much better.

Luna again shifted her feet, knocking off the left over snow that was falling quickly from that sky. She looked back up at me again, as strange misty glow behind her cool blue eyes. That extraordinary glow was always there, along with that mysterious vague smile that was always playing across her lips as it was then. She seemed sad though, disappointed, and then suddenly quite bewildered. She looked lost and helpless and I would have done anything at that moment to make her stop. She made me troubled just seeing her look so out of place.

"I'm beginning to think that I should have just come on my own. It's too cold out here that I should drag you out on this lame quest you don't even believe in. And I shouldn't have threatened you into coming either. Even if it would have been a little fun to plant hatching doxy eggs in your bed at night, which I would have done if you had refused again."

She didn't even smile and then I started to piece together the fact that she _wasn't_ joking. It still made me laugh though.

Luna rubbed her mustard yellow hands together and gave a great sigh and I realized she must have been holding that back for a while.

I smiled down at her hands lying softly on her lizard raincoat. The sudden urge overcame me and I took on of her hands into my own.

"Luna, I came because I wanted to. For you…"

Of course part of me wanted to say 'as well as the whole threat thing' but I decided just to stop before I started.

Luna looked down at our hands for a while and then smiled up at me. She seemed to like to smile a lot and I fancied that detail about her very much.

She laughed out loud which sounded more like singing than anything else. Her eyes beamed back at me and her cheeks flushed a rosy pink. Her hair bounced slightly, covered in disoriented clips of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors. The oddly colored gloves, boots, and jacket reflected the Luna I knew and appreciated. And for that moment and for millions thereafter she was the most beautiful person I had ever laid eyes on.

"Thanks, Harry," she whispered and gave my hand a little squeeze. "But I still should have let you stay home with your friends. You don't want to be out here with me looking for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. You don't even believe in them."

I smiled at her and shook my head. "Sorry, Miss Lovegood, but you have just wrongly accused me not once but three times." She raised her eyebrow a bit and I bit back a laugh. "One, I am _very happy_ being here with you right now. Number two, I _do_ believe in those Snorkel-Horned whatever-you-call-its. And number three, you _are_ my friend Luna."

Luna blushed even further than the little rose tint the wind had given her. She looked down at our hands, still entwined. "You always were sweeter than figs, Harry."

I couldn't help but snicker.

"Thanks, Luna. You're pretty sweet yourself. But I'd say for you, you'd be about as sweet as, lets say, a cantaloupe. I mean you did threaten to put doxy eggs in my bed in the middle of the night, so let's not push it."

Luna laughed again and I felt myself drifting into the sky with happiness. I could have been one of those snowflakes if Luna wasn't still holding my hand.

She paused for a minute and bit her lip before looking back up at me. "Harry, you said you do believe me about the Snorkacks. Do you really?"

I smiled assuredly. "'Course I do."

Luna studied me with her glowing bug eyes. "Why?"

I stopped for a bit to think about it. For a minute I wondered why the hell I had said that to her just to get her hopes up. For a minute I thought of how horrible a liar I was and hated myself down to the earth. And then a minute later I realized exactly why I had said it to begin with.

"Because _you_ do."

Luna puzzled me with her eyes, that vague smile still there on her lips. "I don't get it. You believe me because _I_ believe in them?"

I nodded. "If you say they're true, I won't deny them for one second."

She smiled at me again and there I went, back to the floating sensation again. I could have been on a cloud looking down at us at this point.

"Good then." Luna stood up without warning and my hand flopped lazily back down into my lap. The hot air balloon in my chest pierced with a needle and I gently floated back to reality. The snow suddenly felt very cold against my fingers.

"Good, what? What's good?" I asked, although I had no intention of asking this. I just sort of…came from me.

"Good, we can start looking again. Obviously..." She rolled her blue eyes as if it were the most evident thing in the world and pulled me to my feet. They surprisingly felt very heavy. "We still have about three days of searching left to do. And with all that time we lost just now, I'd estimate we'll be out here until Saturday if we want to finish."

She turned around to face me and I put on a smile for her. Vainly.

"Alright let's start." She clapped her hands together smiled in return and again we marched. At that moment I was reminded horribly of a blonde Hermione Granger.

I watched her head as it bobbed before me and I felt my heart grow watching her searching for that Humpled Snorkel Sack Whatever with such passion and enthusiasm.

We never did find what we were looking for even despite those long hours of searching through the never-ending snow. I never regretted one minute though.

I sit here now in the Great Hall in my same spot, Ginny and Hermione on either side of me this time. Luna's coming over to me at this very minute. As she passes the Hufflepuff table, I can only wonder what she's thought up this time. Her clothes are mismatched and her hair disordered in some new style she invented all her own. She's a strange girl indeed.

And I've never loved her more.

**(A/N) Well guys I hope you liked it. This was my first H/L fic so if you find anything a little OOC, particularly with Luna, please consider that. Also I'd really appreciate some constructive criticism here or there. It would help me out so much! Thanks for reading!**

**Love from Lizzie **


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